Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House. As Senator Bradford stated, he is spending much time here and he is always very engaging in debate with us, which I welcome.

Like other speakers involved in the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality I also welcome the opportunity for the committee to hear submissions from organisations on the national vetting bureau Bill. We heard a series of submissions today which were hugely informative. I learned a great deal about how the Bill could be improved. What we learned is that organisations such as the GAA, Swim Ireland, the ISPCC and Barnardos already have in place vetting procedures which are ahead of the procedures set out in the statutory framework provided by the Bill. There will be a good deal of improvement to be made to the Bill following submissions to the committee. It is a very good model for working on the heads of a Bill and improving a Bill.

I will now turn to an issue raised by Senators Bradford and Walsh on the Bill before the House, which is timing. It is important that the referendum be held soon and I am glad it will be held in October, because this debate has gone on rather too long and has been damaging to the relationship between the various wings of power in the State, namely, the Judiciary, the Executive and the Legislature. It is time it was put to rest. I am one of the lawyers who did not believe this referendum was necessary, and I think the Minister outed himself as another member of this group. A large number of lawyers thought there was authority in the 1959 case, O'Byrne v. Minister for Finance, to which the Minister referred and in the wording of Article 35.5 of the Constitution which would have allowed for the imposition of a general public service levy on judges in the same way that income taxes are allowed.